Welcome to Wowhead's WoW Classic Druid Tank Best in Slot Gear Guide, updated for of Classic WoW, including gear from ! In this guide, we will cover all the Druid Tank best in slot options for every phase of WoW Classic and content type. With our WoW Classic Best in Slot lists, we will help you understand what items you should need on in Dungeons, what quests to do for rewards at level 60, and what are the best items to craft.

We will cover the best gear to acquire for brand-new level 60 Druids collecting pre-raid BiS sets, as well as the best gear from all available raids including Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. We also offer a look at Best in Slot gear coming in future phases, for players that wish to prepare in advance.

While this page emphasizes gear to utilize in different WoW Classic PvE situations, we also provide gear guides for Druid Leveling and Druid PvP.

Looking for a quick reference for Best in Slot lists? Check out our friends at WoWClassicBiS for a TLDR listing of gear for all phases.

Our Druid guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, theorycrafting, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on View Changelog at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Druid guides for , make sure to browse the Navigation Bar below, and our list of Related Guides just beneath the Table of Contents.

Druid Tank Gearing Advice

When gearing as a Tank Druid, there are two major factors that you need to keep in mind:

Maul is essentially the only ability that you will be using, and it is incredibly critical that make the most of this ability. Because of this, you'll want to aim for 9% hit on your gear so that you don't miss your maul. On top of that, bears can use things like Manual Crowd Pummeler to increase their attack speed and get more mauls in during the 30-second window that this weapon provides.

Dire Bear Form increases your armor contribution from items by 360% so, you should be on the lookout for items that have a high budget of armor on them or, in some cases there is armor on item slots that usually don't have armor such as Warden Staff.

BiS"]Druid Tank Best in Slot Gear (BiS) - WoW Classic

Below are the Best in Slot gear recommendations for Tank Druid in Blackwing Lair, the newest raid in WoW Classic Phase 3. While epics from Blackwing Lair play a large role in this list, we also recommend gear from PvP, Professions, dungeons, and quests.

Druid gearing is pretty consistent, you want to aim for 9% hit for Maul but also armor for Dire Bear Form. In Phase 4 you get access to the Green Dragon world bosses, ZG, and Arathi Basin reputation rewards, feral tank druids actually get some decent items from this phase.HeadOne of the new world bosses drops a considerably strong helm for feral druid tanks, it's worth noting that this might be hard to acquire by nature of how difficult it can be to maintain world boss control.

Main HandThe new world bosses are going to drop the first "feral druid" weapon, as you can see it increases your attack power in cat/bear form by a significant amount. This might be hard to acquire since it is from a world boss.

Druid gearing is pretty consistent, you want to aim for 9% hit for Maul but also armor for Dire Bear Form. In Phase 5 you gain access to AQ 20 and AQ 40, this is also a period of the game where items dramatically increased in stat value and you can expect to see your character rise equally in power level.HeadGuise is gonna be your best helm for the rest of Classic, at this point you should have a good idea about the type of gear you're looking for: high armor, high stamina, high agility, etc.

NeckMark of C'thun is notably lacking agility but, it's by far the best mitigation neck you're going to find and it has 1% hit which is actually quite relevant for bear druids as finding 9% hit can be difficult.

WristsQiraji Execution Bracers are the 2nd best mitigation bracers for tank druids and the number 1 threat bracers, in my opinion they're probably the best bracers in the game for feral tank as picking up hit on bracers is quite nice.

HandsWe finally have some replacements for Slaghide Gauntlets: the hidden temple gloves are going to be your highest mitigation option for the entirety of Classic with Bile-Covered right behind them. I am listing gloves of enforcement as they are the best threat gloves in the game and they also happen to be the best feral dps gloves (often times the best feral dps pieces are your best tank threat pieces). So depending on what type of stats you need from your gloves you have plenty of options.

WaistAQ 40 ends up doing a good job of giving you a mitigation option as well as a threat option, for waist you get access to thick qirajihide which is going to be the best mitigation belt for all of Classic, and you also have belt of never-ending agony which is incredibly for threat. Depending on what stats you need you can use either of these.

RingAt this point you have several ring options that look somehwat similar and you should be able to look at the rest of your gear and decide what your character needs. Vek'lor gives you a decent amount of threat along with the best mitigation stats in the game. The reputation ring is very similar to accuria except it trades 1% hit for increased main stat.

Main HandQiraji Warhammer along with Tome of Knowledge is a probably your best combination of weapons to wear as a bear tank, at this point in the game you'll start to see items like this that dramatically increase your attack power in bear/cat form. This weapon in particular though stands out as it also has armor and even a little defense.

Druid gearing is pretty consistent, you want to aim for 9% hit for Maul but also armor for Dire Bear Form. In Phase 6 we are officially in the end-game, Naxxramas brings with it powerful foes and powerful upgrades.Head

ChestGhoul Skin is by far your best chestpiece as a bear tank, it provides the most mitigation and the most threat. As you can see it's almost identical to stats as Malfurion's Bulwark and has 2% crit on top of that.

RingInstructor Razuvious gives us another option for an armor ring, as you can see it's entirely mitigation besides the 1% hit so, just depending on what stats you need you have a wide variety of rings you can use.

Main HandEnd of Dreams is another decent option but, you miss out on all the mitigation stats that are attached to the warhammer, but now you at least have a couple good alternatives if you can't get the AQ drop.

Druid Tank Pre-Raid Best in Slot Gear (BiS) - WoW Classic

Before you start raiding in WoW Classic, you must prepare your character by gearing up through dungeons. Our Druid Tank Pre-Raid Best in Slot gear page will explain the best items from dungeons, reputations, crafting, and early PvP to acquire so you are as effective as possible before stepping foot in your first raid.

Druid Tank PvP Best in Slot Gear (BIS)

Druid Tank Fire Resistance Gear - WoW Classic

Fire Resistance, a stat which mitigates incoming magical fire damage, is very helpful for some Phase 1 Classic WoW encounters in Molten Core and Onyxia, especially if you need additional survivability. Below you will find the best Fire Resistance gear obtainable outside of Molten Core, so you can farm and equip the gear as you progress through the raid. Do keep in mind that much of the pre-raid Fire Resistance gear is lacking in other stats, so while your survivability may increase, your raid performance otherwise will decrease.

We will create additional gear lists for other types of resistances as more raids unlock.

Feral Tank Druid Advanced Gear Usage

Armor

As previously discussed above the BIS table, Dire Bear Form increases your armor by 360% and makes it very easy for druids to reach the physical damage mitigation cap. Because of this multiplier, you want to be on the lookout for items like Warden Staff that provide you with a large amount of armor from a slot that otherwise wouldn't carry armor. Similarly, you can pick up items like Slaghide Gauntlets that have more armor than an item of similar item level would typically have, many items have a higher armor budget, and you should be on the lookout for anything that has high armor.

Attack Speed

Because almost all of your threat comes from Maul and because Maul replaces your auto attack, if you can find a way to increase your attack speed you can increase your threat generation by a significant amount. Because your melees happen in shapeshift form, you have a normalized attack speed of 2 seconds, from here you have to get creative in order to increase your attack speed. Manual Crowd Pummeler is the most infamous item for druids to increase their attack speed with, this item is incredibly powerful, and the only downside is you have to stealth through Gnomer to farm it. It's worth noting that you can further increase your attack speed by attaching an Iron Counterweight to your crowd pummeler as a cheap alternative to an enchant. Another item that is slightly less accessible than the crowd pummeler is Kiss of the Spider from Naxxramas.

Hit Rating

Because you only have access to Leather and Cloth items to wear it can be much harder for druids to acquire the 9% hit you need to make sure that you don't miss a Maul. When considering gear, it's essential to have a good balance of both threat and mitigation gear, for Druids especially you might have to drop some armor or health to pick up the required hit rating.

Best Feral Druid DPS Weapons

Classic Druids have a rather unique relationship with weapons as you'll mainly be equipping them for the stats they bring and mostly ignoring the damage range and DPS portions on the weapons you equip.

In short, Feral Druid DPS will use weapons that are high in agility, strength, and attack power to increase their prowess in their melee Cat Form: they use weapons like Manual Crowd Pummeler to take advantage of the on-use ability while also utilizing items such as Hammer of Bestial Fury to increase their attack power in their various animal forms.

Classic Druid Tier Set Bonuses

In WoW Classic, every class has access to both Dungeon and Tier sets, throughout their character progression. Sets are pieces of equipment that, when equipped together, provide extra benefits to your character. These sets also may require multiple pieces of armor to be equipped, with some requiring up to eight different pieces simultaneously to provide different benefits.

In this section, we will explore these sets for Druids, discussing their viability and how important is to acquire them in the long scheme of gearing. The availability of these sets depends on the current Phase.

Druid tier sets are mostly for healing so, as a Feral Tank Druid, you won't be getting much value outside of perhaps good gear for PVP, offspecs, etc. There are a few noteworthy set bonuses that you can see here:

If you're a true dungeon hero then you'll probably be doing the questline to acquire this gear. Unfortunately, this gear doesn't provide incredible tanking bonuses, and by the time the gear is released, you will already have access to far better items from the raids. All in all, this set is a mini-version of Tier 2.5.

Cenarion is quite an odd set as the stats on the gear are tailored toward healing, but the bonuses are all over the place. The most significant of the three bonuses is the 3-piece Thorns damage, it's worthwhile to keep the 3-set in your bags for when you have to buff forms, improving threat generation slightly. For the most part, Druids are one of the classes with the least competition for gear, so especially with tier 1, you should pick up 8/8 in no time. The stats on Tier 1 are quite good for PVP in the early phases of the game.

Similar to Tier 1, Stormrage has little use beyond Offspec and PVP for a Feral Druid but, the gear has great stats for healing and in the case of Tier 2 some upgraded set bonuses. The 3-piece is incredible for healing and is by far the best set bonus here; it will greatly increase your mana regeneration throughout a raid night. The other two sets are much more straightforward, and as you can tell, they're just bonuses to your heals.

Genesis is a little bit of everything, similar to the PVP gear it's quite decent for dealing damage in a PvP setting especially. While the first two set bonuses are tailored toward Feral Tanks, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that by this phase of the game you have access to a lot better tanking gear than this set.

This set is incredible... For healing. As you probably have learned by now, all of the Druid sets aren't properly itemized for tanking, but they certainly make proper offsets. Although they don't benefit Feral, it's worth talking about the set bonuses. The 2-piece is incredible and makes the druid healer even more important than they already are. The 4-piece is pretty straightforward and substantial mana cost reduction for your primary healing spells. The 6-set gives your Regrowth spell the potential to increase the target's health by 350; while not insignificant it isn't game-breaking by any means. The 8 set once again provides you with mana regen attached to a spell crit incentive.

Best Druid Tank Utility Items

Classic WoW has many items that can be used to aid you in combat, be it to deal more damage, help ensnare (or escape) from enemies, and even save some gold on repairs if your death is imminent! Below, we have some examples of utility items that you can get.

Skull of Impending Doom: This off-hand item increases your movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds, but at a price: It will drain your health and can kill you. It can be used to both escape from enemies or save some gold on a durability-less death! This item is a reward from the Badlands quest Forbidden Knowledge.

Magic Dust puts enemies to sleep for up to 30 seconds. This item can be very useful to run away from enemies or turn the tide of battle in PvP or PvE combat. You can obtain those by killing Dust Devils in Westfall.

Tidal Charm is another CC item, allowing you to stun an enemy for 3 seconds. Not as useful for fleeing as the Magic Dust, but can still stop enemies dead in their tracks to secure you a kill. Drops off the rare mob Prince Nazjak in Arathi Highlands.

Nifty Stopwatch increases your movement speed by 40% for 10 seconds. You can use this to run away from mobs, chase enemies easier and more. You obtain this item from the Badlands quest This Is Going to Be Hard.

Using Wowhead to Find Gear Upgrades for Your Classic Tank Druid

The Tank Druid Best in Slot guide provides top recommendations for your character. However, you may be interested in looking for upgrades on your own, as Classic has many items that provide similar benefits for your character. Perhaps you are interested in items with a specific effect, or are really unlucky with drops and want to find a good upgrade from quest instead of the recommended one from a dungeon.

Classic Wowhead’s database offers several powerful tools allowing you to browse all available items in the game, filter them by numerous parameters to narrow results, rank them by best combinations of stats, and create your own personalized gear sets.

Item Filters: On the Classic Wowhead Item Database, you can browse every single item from Classic WoW. To further filter results, you can narrow it down by parameters like:

Type and Level: Search for a certain type of item, like all Leather Helms + Gloves. You can further narrow things by their required level if you're interested in twinking or leveling upgrades.

Source: There are filters for all types of sources, including drops, crafted items, and quests. For example, here's a list of ]all leather chests from quests requiring level 40 or higher to equip.

Stat Weights: Also on the Classic Wowhead Item Database page are Stat Weights, so you can sort filtered lists to place the most beneficial items for your stat preferences at the top of search results. Here's an example of stat weights for Feral Tank chests. We've created preset stat weight combinations for each class, but you can also click on the "Customize" option to create your own setup.

Gear Planner: The Classic Gear Planner allows you to create your own gear setup, including enchants and talents that modify stats. You can even name and save the set on Wowhead, to share it with anyone.

About the Author

Krug is a veteran member of both the Classic and Retail World of Warcraft communities. If you enjoy his written guides, be sure to follow him on his other pages for more Classic WoW content: Youtube, Twitch, and Twitter.

Feedback

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Comments

Comment by marth354

Does the Iron Counterweight actually work with Manual Crowd Pummeler for druids? It looks like it improves the attack speed of the weapon; which I am not sure would affect attack speed in bear form. I can't test it myself, but if someone else could with beta access that would be great.

Comment by Tsukishire

I think Cloak of Warding (Cloak of Warding) should be mentioned at least in the pre-raid gear section as it was quite popular among Feral druid tanks back then. It is also quite easily accessible as a crafted BoE.

Comment by Tsukishire

I think Cloak of Warding should be mentioned at least in the pre-raid gear section as it was quite popular among Feral druid tanks back then. It is also quite easily accessible as a crafted BoE (pattern is looted from DM which means it becomes available in phase 2).

Comment by ormod

Comment by disastermoon

Comment by frostyfire14

I hope this bis list is a WIP. Cause, its awful.

Comment by KaptainKrunk

I've seen people claim that Totem of Infliction I supposedly a very valid tanking off-hand until late into the game. How true this is, I'm not exactly sure, but the proc can certainly help on gaining threat at least.

Comment by Hildo

Comment by TheMrCreatine

Anyone have an idea why Vosh'gajin's Strand (link) is not included in the pre-raid BiS belts? Seems like it has less base armor than the one provided but the stats make up for it...

Comment by TheMrCreatine

Anyone have an idea why Vosh'gajin's Strand (link) is not included in the pre-raid BiS belts? Seems like it has less base armor than the one provided but the stats make up for it. Relatively easy quest to do without having to farm a drop too.Also quick question unrelated to the belt, does anyone know what the actual armor cap is for raiding? I have heard that the cap is at 75% damage reduction but have not had any conffirmation on this being the case.

Comment by Kbrio

Comment by Agre

Hey guys, what about when you have full raid gear? When I have hit cap and good stamina eq.. And enchant this wrist +9stam. Its can be Useful?

Comment by Agre

Hey guys, what about when you have full raid gear? When I have hit cap and good stamina eq.. And enchant this wrist +9stam. Its can be Useful?

Comment by Agre

Hey guys, what about Wristguards of Stability when you have full raid gear? When I have hit cap and good stamina EQ.. And enchant this wrist +9stam. Its can be Useful?

Comment by senorbob

I was doing some calculations to see which items on the list would give me the biggest improvements when considering my current gear, specifically in terms of effective HP. I also calculated what my HP, EHP, and armor would be if I had all of the pre-raid BiS items on the list, and found a few things.

First off, if you have all the pre-raid BiS items, the Bone Ring Helm provides over 800 EHP more than Mask of the Unforgiven. Yes it loses hit and crit, but it gains a bit of dps from the str and agi. It's also better against magic damage due to the higher HP. I'm personally having a hard time justifying trading all that for 2% hit and 0.75% crit.

Next is the necklace. I found that my current Woven Ivy NecklaceWoven Ivy Necklace actually provides around 100 EHP more than Talisman of EvasionTalisman of Evasion, with comparable dps. Even better, now that battlegrounds are out, I found that Sentinel's MedallionSentinel's Medallion (Scout's Medallion for Horde) is probably the new pre-raid BiS necklace, providing around 200 more EHP than Talisman of Evasion, and marginally more DPS with it.

The last thing I noticed has to do with the Smoking Heart of the Mountain. Yes, 150 armor is nice, and turns into 690 armor in Dire Bear Form (759 with thick hide), but I think people may underestimate just how good Mark of the Chosen is. In my experience, when I'm tanking dungeons, the proc is active a significant amount of the time, and while it's active, the 25 stam and 25 agi combine to give an extra 1400 EHP (when all the other pre-raid BiS items are also equipped), versus the 850ish EHP that the Smoking Heart provides. No, the proc isn't active 100% of the time, but in my opinion it's up enough that when you factor in the large boost in DPS (75 AP and 1.25% crit chance), it's totally worth using over the Smoking Heart.

The really important thing to note here is that all these comparisons have been done assuming that you're otherwise wearing all the pre-raid BiS items from the list above. When you're comparing item A and item B, the one that's better may very well depend on what else you're wearing.

To go into a little more bear tank-specific detail there are a few general rules:

Adding a point of stamina is more valuable when you have high armor than when you have low armor.

Adding armor is more valuable when you have high HP than when you have low HP

The more armor you have, the less benefit you'll get from adding even more armor

The higher your dodge chance is, the MORE benefit you'll get from additional dodge chance (either via agi or from raw +dodge%). Imagine two extreme cases. First, if you go from 0% dodge to 1% dodge, you'll take, on average, 1% less damage, since you'll only be hit by 99 out of 100 attacks. On the other hand, if you go from 98% dodge to 99% dodge, you're effectively cutting the incoming damage in HALF, getting hit 2/100 times versus 1/100 times

Comment by Raptor2213

Comment by Animoman

Why not Evil Eye Pendant from Dire Maul West? This has more Agility than Talisman of Evasion along with other benefits from the Defense which helps mitigate the loss of "+1% Dodge" from the talisman. Seems like a good "optional" choice if the Talisman is.

Comment by Runnyeye

Not listing Blooddrenched Leggings even though they have higher value in P4 seems to be a big oversight (only the Leggings of Apocalypse, and the Outriders/Sentinels are better) but a 20 man ZG is much easier to achieve.

Comment by zz0dzz

Man I've been grinding wsg rep because I saw the exalted legs here as available on p3 but now I'm seeing it's only available on p6..... Come on man don't do this to me.

Comment by epictheepicest

I've been doing a lot of dungeon tanking and pre-raid tanking on a feral druid and I've used this guide almost exclusively for pre-raid BiS and in phase two, but I have an issue with it, which is that it doesn't consider the 9% hit cap. Without at least 5% you miss A HELL of a lot in dungeons and it can piss off your dps or make your run go sour fast. It's quite normal to miss a maul and have a taunt resisted, or even miss multiple swipes. It's not as bad in 40m raids raids in which your group will actually listen if you say you need a few seconds to build rage/aggro. I think at least for dungeons (especially with good dps in the group), the Devilsaur Armor set, Truestrike Shoulders and Mask of the Unforgiven/Onyxia Tooth Pendant are almost mandatory. This allows you to cap hit while still using the high armor rings, trinkets, etc for mitigation.

Things I also think should be added are Cenarion Vestments, which is easy to get, has a lot higher armor than Warbear and Mixologist's and also has a good amount of stamina, and Deepfury Bracers, which can be bought from AH and are a good alternative to Shadowcraft. If you end up with Shadowcraft Boots instead of Ash Covered Boots, you can pair them with Shadowcraft Bracers/Bone Ring Helmet or Deepfury Bracers/Shadowcraft Cap for the +200 Armor bonus and about the same Dodge %.

And of course if you have been doing PVP since launch and hit rank 10, that blue set is great for tanking.

PHASE 4 UPDATE: Have been doing a lot of raid tanking in MC, BWL and ZG and have to say that having 9% hit on your main set is even more important than ever for threat. And when you have to wear an alternate set for a boss like Ragnaros or Firemaw, you can compensate by using a Manual Crowd Pummeler. Boots of the Shadow Flame are a priority right now for the hit % as well as Drake Fang Talisman which will let you drop the Devilsaur pieces in P5 in favor of much better stuff from AQ, though good luck getting one. I also think Genesis Trousers from AQ should be added to the phase 5 leg options. They're comparable to the PVP set legs and relatively easy to get if you're in a guild that does AQ regularly.

Comment by ReelJV

Now that BWL is out I changed my FR chestpiece from Cenarion to the "Black Ash Robe" from Firemaw. I am only losing about 80 armor and gaining 20 FR in the process. I think this is BIS FR chest for Feral druid in Phase 3.

Comment by MalvadoMansos

I wonder why no one ever considers Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6, it is a very solid, free trinket, considering you are going for Don Julio's. 8 hp / 5sec + 2% dodge is awesome for tanking as a druid.

Comment by MrYadow

Greetings,

Is there any way to find the BiS-lists for Phase 1 and 2?Thank you.

Comment by Runnyeye

Beating out the Molten Belt by 10.9 points (Threat and Tank values combined). There is less a less than 7 pt spread on tank value alone... and Lava belt shouldn't even be listed. Who ever made that list doesn't understand tanking on a druid.

Comment by vlaka

Listing pvp gear as BEST is just wrong.Time investment to attain this when there are better and easier alternatives available automatically should null the mention.

Comment by Lotimar

Comment by pimpindacrib

As many have pointed out, this guide is completely out dated in many ways, especially with today's current meta. It would be nice to see this guide rewritten with the help of the feral community who actually put in the time and effort to sim and maximize. I would be willing to assist my time to help with this, just head on over the the classic druid discord and peak inside the tank thread's pins.

Comment by Kyph

Just to agree with posters above, this list is awful.Plenty of flagrant omissions and errors both in priorities and availability (WSG pants are not available until phase 6!). Great presentation, terrible content.